Ioc 2008 Women & Sport Trophy Winners

IOC 2008 WOMEN & SPORT TROPHY WINNERS Trophy for Africa: Ms Ana Paula Dos Santos Encouraging people with disabilities to excel The First Lady of the Republic of Angola has taken a hands-on approach to help develop Paralympic sport in her country. Ana Paula Dos Santos is the founder and President of the Lwini Foundation – a body that promotes and financially supports the interests of land mine victims. Sport as a means to bring back hope – this was her drive to start a collaboration with the Angolan Paralympic Committee and set up the Lwini Cup. During this event, which has already been held six times, people with a disability get the opportunity to enjoy sports activities such as athletics, wheelchair basketball and football. Trophy for America: Ms Abby Hoffman An advocate for equality Possibly an incident in her childhood made Canadian Abby Hoffman fight against gender, race, political or unfair discrimination in sport throughout her athletic and professional career. At age nine, Abby Hoffmann was banned from playing hockey with a boys' team that she had joined as there were no girls' teams. She made a career in athletics instead, and participated in four Olympic Games. Later, she became the first woman to serve as Director General of Sport Canada. As an IAAF Council member since 1995, she has advocated equality for the female and male competition programmes and a minimum 20% female representation on all IAAF Committees and Commissions. Trophy for Asia: Ms Lingwei Li Inspirational on court and in leadership Li Lingwei from China is one of the very few icons who continue to share their experience and expertise even after giving up active competition. As badminton champion in the 1980s, and winning over 50 grand prix and international titles, she has been the catalyst to attract women and girls to her sport. Later, she became China's national team coach for ladies and inspired young athletes to greater heights. Nowadays she demonstrates outside the court how women can lead by example: as a Council member of the Badminton World Federation, a member of the IOC Olympic Programme Commission and Deputy Director General of BOCOG's International Relations Department. Trophy for Europe: Ms Stefka Kostadinova Let women and girls strive higher Determination, dynamism and passion enabled Stefka Kostadinova to become an Olympic champion in the high jump in Atlanta 1996, but also to develop into a successful sports manager in her home country Bulgaria. Since her retirement from competition in 1999, Stefka Kostadinova decided to provide her expertise to national sports bodies, and is now Chairman of the Bulgarian Olympic Committee. Through her inspirational athletic skills as well as through her management skills, Stefka Kostadinova has significantly developed the participation of women and girls in athletics not only in Bulgaria, but also in the whole Balkan area. Trophy for Oceania: Ms Debbie Watson Ambassador for clean sport After 17 years as a professional water polo player, Australian Debbie Watson is committed to passing on to the next generation what sport has given to her. She is a campaigner for drug-free sport and contributes to Australian Olympic Committee's (AOC) drug education programme “Live Clean. Play Clean”. More recently she has also become a key presenter in the AOC's “Winning Attitudes Seminar”, which helps first-time Olympians to understand the challenges of competing at the Olympic Games. Who could be more credible to do this than the Olympic gold medallist from Sydney 2000 who played a record of 315 international games for Australia? World Trophy: Ms Datuk Seri Azalina Othman Said A powerwalk for women's participation in Malaysian sport As the first and youngest female Minister of Youth and Sports in Malaysia, Datuk Seri Azalina Othman Said has completely revolutionised the participation of Malaysian women in sport – and this just within less than four years since her appointment. She is a minister, sports book author, founder of a sports festival and a Women's Sport and Fitness foundation, and last but not least an enthusiastic sports woman in one person. The Women's Games she conceived attracted 3,400 Malaysian women in 2007; the powerwalk manual she developed has been circulated to almost 60,000 people across the nation; and, to go even higher in numbers, the 580 community centres she established enable about 100,000 female participants to practise sporting activities. Numbers that speak for themselves… * * * *.

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